150 years after Arthur Rimbaud ditched his post in Central Java, France and Indonesia turned his getaway route into a literary exchange program
In July 1876, a 21-year-old French poet joined the Dutch colonial army, took a train through Central Java, collected his pay in Salatiga and vanished. He was never seen in military records again.

That poet was Arthur Rimbaud, and his brief, chaotic detour through Semarang, Kedungjati, Tuntang, and Salatiga is now the origin story for something far less impulsive: the Rimbaud Residency, the first bilateral, reciprocal literary residency program between France and Indonesia.

At a glance:

• Launched via press conference at the French Residence, Jakarta, on 10 September 2026
• First resident: Haitian-French novelist Louis-Philippe Dalembert, in Semarang September–November 2026 (3 months)
• Reciprocal leg: an Indonesian writer heads to Château de Villers-Cotterêts, France, in early 2027
• 150 years since Rimbaud's 1876 passage through Java

Credit : IFI Press and Partnership Coordinator

The program is organized by the Embassy of France in Indonesia – Institut français d'Indonésie (IFI), in partnership with the City of Semarang, following the August 2026 opening of the exhibition Arthur Rimbaud: A Journey through Java. Ambassador Fabien Penone and Semarang Mayor Dr. Agustina Wilujeng Pramestuti led the launch, alongside Dalembert himself.

 

 

 

 

 

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Who Is Louis-Philippe Dalembert, the First Rimbaud Resident?

Dalembert is one of French-language literature's heavyweight names right now. Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and based in Paris, he's already done time at the Villa Médicis in Rome  one of the world's most storied residencies.

His track record: Avant que les ombres s'effacent won the Prix Orange du Livre 2017; Mur Méditerranée took the Prix de la Langue française 2019 and won the Choix Goncourt in both Switzerland and Poland; Milwaukee Blues was a Prix Goncourt finalist in 2021. Exile, migration, and identity aren't abstract themes for him  they're the material.

From September to November 2026, he's based at Lawang Sewu, Semarang's landmark former Dutch railway building, working on new writing while running public talks and workshops with students and researchers at Universitas Negeri Semarang (UNNES) and Alliance Française Semarang.

Why Semarang, and Why Rimbaud?

Semarang isn't an arbitrary pick. It's where Rimbaud's own Java chapter began  he arrived, traveled the Kedungjati–Tuntang–Salatiga line, then deserted within days after cashing his enlistment pay. It's one of the stranger footnotes in French literary history: a poet who quit poetry at 20, spent his later years as a colonial mercenary and trader, and never wrote about Java at all.

That silence is part of the appeal. Rather than a monument to a documented visit, the residency turns an absence  barely any record of what Rimbaud actually did here  into an open invitation for new writers to fill the gap.

How Does the Reciprocal Exchange Work?

This isn't a one-way cultural export. After Dalembert's stay, an Indonesian writer travels to France in early 2027 for a three-month residency at the Cité internationale de la langue française, housed in the Château de Villers-Cotterêts  the very site where King François I made French the kingdom's official language in 1539. President Emmanuel Macron inaugurated the center in 2023.

The program builds on the 2025 Borobudur Declaration on a Joint Cultural Strategy, signed by Presidents Macron and Prabowo Subianto, and follows the Choix Goncourt Indonesia award launched in May 2026. IFI has confirmed more residencies in other Indonesian regions before June 2027.